Person/Group/E

vent/Place
Summary Facts Quotes
Russia Large
Barren
Different cultures and peoples
In 1900 for 6 out of 10 of the Tsar's
subjects, Russian was a foreign
language, and Russian people were
foreigners.
Only 5% of Russia's land was good for
/ used for farming in 1900
In 1897, Russia had 122.9 million
citizens, of which 55, 650, 000 were
Russian.
60 different nationalities


Nicholas Tsar young and unexpectedly
Married to Princess Alexandra,
had 4 children
Autocratic democracy and
elections would result in political
collapse
Devoted family man
Knew little about reality of harsh
Russian life
Believed in using violence to
maintain autocracy
Nicholas and Alexandra were very
Religious
Tsar Nicholas owned 8 palaces and
employed 15, 000 servants.
I am not ready to be a Tsar. I never wanted to
become one. I know nothing of the business of
ruling. Nicholas, 1894
I shall adhere as unswervingly as my father to the
principle of autocracy. Nicholas, Opening
Manifesto of 1894
The emperor Nicholas has not inherited his fathers
commanding personality nor the strong character
and prompt decision making which are so essential
to an autocratic ruler. Sir George Buchanan
He was wholly ignorant about governmental
matters. Duchess Olga (sister)
His mentality and circumstances kept him
[Nicholas] wholly out of touch with his people.
Alexander Kerensky
The gentle but uneducated Emperor ... is weak on
every point except his own autocracy. Sir Arthur
Nicholson
The daily work of a ruler he [Nicholas] found very
boring. Alexander Kerensky
His character is the source of all of our
misfortunes. His outstanding weakness is a lack of
willpower. Sergei Witte
But he only grasps the significance of a fact in
isolation without its relationships to other facts.
Pobedonostsev
Russian Society Ruling Class:
Tsar + royal family +
members of government
= 0.5% of the Russian
Population
Upper Class:
Gentry/Nobility
12.0% of the population
Landowners, merchants,
church leaders
Commercial and Professional
Middle Class:
Lack of unity of common
cause
Professions such as
manufacturers,
managers, specialist
white collar workers and
intelligentsia
1.5%
Industrial Working Class:
Proletariat
4%
Peasants:
90 million (est.) 82% of
population
Feudal and
Agrarian(producing
foodstuffs in
countryside) society
underdeveloped
Overcrowded and poor
conditions
Nobles 1% of population, owned
25% of all the land

Upper Class:
This class was unified by their total protection
from the harsh reality of Russian life Richard
Malone (ARR 12)
Illiterate

Pillars of
Authority
The government:
The Imperial council
Tsars advisors
The cabinet of Ministers
The Senate
The Bureaucracy:
Noble upper class
Infighting and hostility
Randomly interpreted
Tsars laws
The police:
Okhrana interests of
state
Police general police
work
Cossacks Don River
side with Tsar for
autonomy and
independence
The Church:
Tsar used to legitimise
his rule and autocracy
The Bureaucracy:
14 levels of bureaucracy
The police:
1 policeman for every
3850 peasants
The Church:
Under state control since
1721
In 1900 of primary
schools run by church
God Save the Tsar
national anthem
Tricentenary of the
Romanovs 300
th

anniversary how tsarism
saw itself.

Witte Minister of Finance, 1893 1903
Modernise industry
Foreign capital
investments
Railway import/export
+trade
Stabilised economy
Greater production
Trans-Siberian Railway complete
1905
Result: poor conditions,
Large investments from foreign
countries, from 98 million roubles
in 1880 to 911 million roubles in
1900
Working conditions 12 hour days,
by 1914 60 hour weeks
1904 survey average 16 people
per apartment, and 6 people per
room

Russia was a backward and antiquated
agricultural society in comparison to the
aggressive growth experienced by enterprising
industrial countries like Germany, Britain and the
United States Richard Malone, ARR 17
overcrowding, heavy taxes + high
interest rates
Revolutionary
Political
Movements
Social Revolutionaries (SR's)
1880s (Post
Emancipation) -reform
SRs 1901
Victor Chernov,
Alexander Kerensky
Peasants, urban workers
Agrarian socialism and
feudal democracy
Fighting Organisation
1905 most popular
Social Democrats (RSDLP) - 1898
Mensheviks:
1903, lead by Julius
Martov
Urban workers,
professionals, socialists
Middle class important,
education, overthrow
Tsar = socialism
Large, open,
membership
Bolsheviks:
1903, lead by Lenin
Urban workers, soldiers
WC + P against Tsar
Rise up, overthrow the
Tsar
Small, select group
1905 not influential
Liberals
Kadets:
The Constitutional
Social Revolutionaries (SR's)
Kolonitskii: The socialists
considered it to be a bourgeois
revolution and looked for a way out
of the crisis and its problems by
deepening the revolution
"The SR's belief that peasants were
crucial to revolution made them a
primary political party of rural
Russia." (Text book, pg. 35)

Social Democrats (RSDLP) - 1898
Mensheviks:
Wood: The
collaboration of
Menshevik and SR
ministers with the
bourgeois, pro-war
government meant that
the Bolsheviks were now
the only political faction
which pursued an
unswervingly anti-war
policy

Bolsheviks:
"The Bolsheviks believed
that the revolution should
be organised by a small
group of dedicated and
skilled revolutionaries." ---
Booklet, 25
Liberals
"There was a growing liberal
Social Revolutionaries (SR's)
"The SRs gained support from the millions of
peasants who wanted their own land..." (Booklet,
page 24)
"Socialist Revolutionary Party ... the most popular
Marxist revolutionary party in Russia because it
represented the interests of the peasants" (34,
Textbook, Richard Malone)
Mensheviks:
"...the whole revolution would fail if it did not
have the support of the whole working class." ---
Julius Martov
Bolsheviks:
"A small, tight solid nucleus of the most
dependable, experienced and hardened workers
having trustworthy representatives in the main
regions and connected by all the rules of secrecy
with the organisation of revolutionaries can, quite
capably, fulfil all functions of a professional
organisation, in a manner desirable to a Social-
Democratic movement. Only in this was can we
secure the consolidation and development of a
Social-Democratic trade-union movement."
-Lenin, translated by Jane Scales
Liberals
Kolonitskii: For the liberals it [the revolution]
was excessively radical, cutting across their ideals
and developing in a direction which was left of
common sense
Smith: The February revolution gave rise to a
short-lived mood of national unity and optimism.
Liberty and democracy were the order of the day.
Overnight everyone was transformed from a
subject to a citizen.
Democratic Party
During/result 1905
revolution
Paul Miliukov, Prince
Lvov
Landlords, industrialists,
lawyers, professionals
Constitutional monarchy
Octobrists:
During/result 1905
revolution
Mikhail Rodzianko,
Alexander Guchkov
Industrialists and
landlords
Supported/accepted
October manifesto
(1905)
System with
representatives, but Tsar
most power
Subtle political
campaigning
movement in Russia which argued
that the dire need for change did
not require an overthrow of the
Tsarist system."
----Textbook, 37

Kadets:
Octobrists:

Kadets:
""...promoting a system of constitutional
monarchy."
----Textbook, 37
Octobrists:
"Their [the Octobrists] loyalty to the Tsar meant
that they embraced the Dumas as a significant
constitutional reform." ----Textbook, 37
"Primary influence was in the Dumas where they
were commonly voicing serious concerns about
the incompetence of the government."
---Textbook, 37
1905 Revolution Russo-Japanese War
Nicholas Glad of War (Over Korea
and Manchuria)
Short Victory would make him
and his government popular

Bloody Sunday
Peoples Response
Tsars Response
Russo-Japanese War
Nicholas sent Russian Baltic fleet to
help, all but 3 were destroyed in
the battle of Tsushima